Articulation
by mugglecastlover31
Summary: The season four finale left Daniel in the middle of the ocean. Here's what happens to him. A quick fic about Daniel getting back to Charlotte. A little fluff at the end. Just a quick story about everyone's favorite island physicist. Read and review please


_A/N: This is short Daniel fic with some Daniel/Charlotte fluff. I wrote it because the Season 4 finale left him hanging. Since he's my all time favorite character, I couldn't just leave him in the middle of the ocean! So here's what happens to him. Hopefully everyone enjoys it and reviews! And thanks to my betas, WinterBaby19 and BlindingPinkObsession. Constructive criticism is always welcome but all flamers will be punished by Daniel (not quite sure how since he's completely harmless...except maybe to himself). Read on and enjoy!_

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Articulation

"Is everyone all right?"

The sky had just become brighter than human eyes could handle. Their ears still rang.

"What the _hell_ was that?" the middle aged blond woman asked. He didn't know her name. She might've told him but he didn't remember. Or rather, he didn't care. It didn't matter. If she died… he'd just rather not know.

"Maybe another hatch exploded," someone else on the boat suggested.

He sighed, "No."

"Then what was that, Daniel?" the blond woman asked. Her face shone with tears.

They were on their way back towards the island. After seeing the freighter go up in flames, Daniel realized there was no need to journey to the wreckage.

He sighed again. "It doesn't matter; we just need to worry about heading to the island." He hated explaining things to other people. They would not have understood anything anyways. He had trouble simplifying what was in his head. Thoughts rolled around at the speed of light, but he could never translate them into words anyone understood. Except for Charlotte. She always seemed to know that when he did speak, it was best not to ask questions and just do what he said.

"Look!" one of other men shouted. He pointed straight ahead of them.

Daniel, drawn out of his contemplation, looked up. _The island had disappeared_. So that's what the math had meant. He knew it was something like that. Maybe if he had changed the value of two of the variables…but he was getting sidetracked again. Too many thoughts.

"Yes?" Daniel asked quietly.

"Where is the island?!" the man shouted. As for the blond woman, she had broken down completely.

He didn't know what to say. Anything he said would make it worse. And Charlotte…well, if his calculations were incorrect concerning the outcome of the strange electromagnetism, then maybe those who were on the island when it moved would remain unharmed. But what of us? He wondered. Are we to die in the middle of the ocean?

"I don't know," Daniel answered truthfully, "But let me think for a couple moments. Maybe I can come up with something."

He hated this role. The leader role. He was not a leader. He hated talking to people more than he needed to as it was. But having to answer to other people, to allay fears, that was torture. Others were built for such tasks. He wished Charlotte was there. She always helped him calm down.

"COME UP WITH SOMETHING? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?" the man screamed. Apparently he had taken Daniel's suggestion as sarcasm.

Daniel ignored him and turned off the engine. No point in wasting fuel.

The man continued to scream but Daniel blocked it out. He looked straight ahead and set his mind to doing what it did best: math. He changed numbers that he now knew were incorrect and figured out new values.

The rest of the people on the boat stared at him as he muttered to himself. Had he gone crazy? No, they already thought he was crazy. The twitchy absent minded professor.

"Got it," he muttered suddenly, scaring quite a few of the other passengers. He set the bearings and started up the engine.

The same man who had screamed at him now asked, "You've got to tell us what is going on."

Daniel felt uncomfortable, but he answered the question, "I think I figured out where the island has been moved to and how we can get back."

"'_Where the island has been moved?'"_

Daniel winced. He shouldn't have said that. More questions.

"Look, I can't explain now. Maybe when we get back to the island..." His eyes were pleading. This kind of conversation- he wasn't sure he could handle it.

The man looked angry but Daniel just looked away in the direction that the boat was now headed. Hopefully he knew what he was doing…

oOoOoOoOoOo

Hours later, Daniel started to doubt himself. He had lost track of time and didn't want to ask anyone. How long had they been going? They would probably run out of fuel soon. Then what? Death by starvation? He may not particularly like crowds, but the deaths of these people on his mind? Hopefully it would be a quick death…

He was lethargic. In his mind he kept doing the math and going over the numbers. He changed numbers and then realized he had them right in the first place. His equations in space were correct. But maybe his numbers in time weren't. He already knew that the space-time continuum was different here. He just hadn't quite found a way to quantify it. Sighing, he ran his hands through his hair.

"Is that…?" someone whispered.

Daniel looked up.

It wasn't a mirage was it?

"Oh it's there! It's there!" the woman screamed.

And so it was.

oOoOoOoOoOo

The boat ran out of fuel not far from the beach. They were forced to swim back the short distance. They knew it was their island. It couldn't have been any other.

Everyone collapsed on the sun soaked sand and just lay as if in a coma. Daniel stood up. He needed to find Charlotte. He needed to make sure that when the island had moved, she had not been harmed.

His schoolboy crush on her embarrassed him a little. He didn't understand social norms all that well, but he knew that by his age, he should have at least had one girlfriend. No such luck. And being the scatterbrained professor type, well he knew it didn't help his case in the least. But he genuinely cared for her well being. That must count for something.

But she was the first woman to be kind to him. Maybe it was because she thought he was mentally subnormal. Maybe she liked thinking she was taking care of a child. Whatever it was, it was enough for him. She smiled at him and she encouraged him.

And she had kissed him. However fleeting it may have been, and however confusing, she _had_ kissed him. All he had been able to do was awkwardly put his hand in her hair. He did not know any better. He smiled slightly. It had been nice. Whatever _it_ had been.

He walked for a ways along the beach. It was quiet and uncomfortable but Daniel was deep in his thoughts. They were all jumbled up; sometimes he thought about the fascinating space-time continuum differences, sometimes Charlotte, sometimes other things.

"Dan?"

He looked up. There she was. So beautiful.

"Daniel," she sounded disbelieving, "I thought…"

She was looking up at him, a water bottle halfway into a pack by her feet.

"What?" he asked.

"The freighter, it…I saw smoke." She looked at him searchingly.

"We never made it there." Somehow, stringing together full sentences around her wasn't as difficult. Trying to be articulate just fell into place as opposed to when others asked him questions. Or even talked around him. When he talked to her, his mind didn't wander. No long equations, no difficult questions. Just her. And him. Talking.

"Oh, well good," she said and looked down.

She cared about him. She cared about him? He supposed he had known that already, but just hadn't quite realized it. He knew _he_ cared for her a lot. But he had supposed her caring had just been because of his memory problems. Maybe she just liked helping him remember.

"Daniel?" Charlotte started hesitantly.

"Yeah?"

She walked over to him and put her hand on the side of his face.

"I'm glad you're back," she said, looking straight into his eyes. She turned around and went to pick up her pack.

Daniel smiled inwardly and touched the spot on his cheek she had just brushed. She was here. She was fine. She was well.


End file.
